Date: Wed, 05 Feb 1997 22:43:32 -0500 From: Jim Durham <durham@w2xo.pgh.pa.us> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: DOS partition trouble Message-ID: <32F95364.2781E494@w2xo.pgh.pa.us>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Twice now, I have removed a DOS partition from a disk with both DOS and FreeBSD partitions and been unable to boot FreeBSD. In the case today, it was partition 1 that was a DOS fat type partition. I wanted to remove that and use it for FreeBSD. Upon removing the partition with DOS FDISK, I was no longer able to boot the FreeBSD partition. The boot code appeared to be jumping off to nowhere. The boot manager menu would appear, then , when it tried to proceed with the boot, it would crash and reboot. After fooling with this for a couple of hours, I finally decided to try putting the DOS partition back, so I deleted the new FreeBSD partition and replaced it with a DOS partition. I formatted this and had no trouble booting DOS. I then ran the partition editor in sysinstall and wrote out a new boot Block. Voila! Now I can boot the FreeBSD (and the DOS) partitions. Why? I had tried running the partition editor when I had no DOS partition and it gave all indications of sucessfully writing out the boot block, but would not boot until I remade the DOS partition. Trying to mount the root directory from the MFS on the boot floppy gave a "bad super block" error. I thought I understood what was going on with the partition scheme, but I guess not. Can someone please proffer an explanation of this behavior? thanks Jim Durham
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?32F95364.2781E494>